Ryan ChartrandIf you fall into the majority in every category of enrolled students at Cal Poly, you are probably a 21-year-old Caucasian male engineering major from the San Francisco Bay area . at least that’s what the statistics say.
Figures found in the past year or two show that certain trends prevail among Cal Poly students, especially as far as majors, ethnicity and region of origin go.
A lot can be discerned by taking a look at incoming freshman classes as well.
In the 2007-2008 “Admitted Student Questionnaire Plus,” prepared by Applied Educational Research, Inc. for Cal Poly every year, incoming freshmen indicated the most important characteristic in choosing the college they wished to attend was the quality of majors.
Other top reasons included the undergrad teaching commitment, availability of majors, and academic reputation.
The top feeder high schools – that is, the high schools that the most fall 2007 enrolled first-time freshmen attended – were St. Francis High School in Mountain View with 35 freshmen; Arroyo Grande High School with 34; Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose with 33; La Costa Canyon High School in Encinitas with 31; and San Luis Obispo High School with 30.
David Mravca, a former St. Francis High School student and a mechanical engineering sophomore said he applied to Cal Poly not because there was an emphasis by the high school’s admissions and counseling office to apply, but just because a lot of other students did.
“A lot of people apply to Cal Poly as a back-up if (they) don’t get into a UC or private school, but a lot of people apply as their first choice too,” Mravca said.
“Cal Poly is a lot like St. Francis in a lot of ways; it’s comfortable for the students that go to Cal Poly from there.”
According to James Maraviglia, assistant vice president for admissions, recruitment and financial aid, 34,000 applications were submitted for fall 2007 while there were 7,900 applicants in 1993.
“It was another record applicant pool this year,” Maraviglia said.
Susan Marquess, head of guidance and counseling at St. Francis High School, indicated a reason might be the feedback they get from current Cal Poly students.
“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Marquess said. “No one transfers out of Cal Poly like at other schools.”